Always For You, My Love
by doctoruth
Summary: Brittany and Santana, set at the end of summer in between seasons 2 and 3.


_Where are you?_

Your voice has a tinny sound wrapped into it, and it makes me imagine your breath traveling over all the miles in between us, trapped inside telephone cables from Manati to Lima, until it comes out through the speaker next to my ear. I shiver. _I'm just getting home-, _and I am, just opening the door to my house, -_and now I'm walking up the stairs_.

I say it out loud for you as each of my sneakers touches a stair, _left-right left-right_, imagining you lying on your front in a hotel bed and twisting loose strands of your hair around the fingers of your free hand. I'm not sure if you're doing that or I just think you are. _Where are you, Santana? Are you lying on your stomach and is your hair down?_

You laugh and that means _yes_, so I smile, proud. _I knew it_. I've climbed all of the stairs and I can feel the tightening in my hamstrings where I haven't been stretching properly-because you're not here, and you remind me to do that, tugging on my hands to encourage me to bend at my waist and reach for my toes, and then standing in front of me and leaning to run your hands down the backs of my legs and check for tension.

So I say what I'm thinking. _My legs miss your hands_. You laugh again.

_I bet they do, Britt. My hands are usually surgically attached to your legs_. I startle, until I realize you don't mean that how I picture it, and I let out a giggle for my mistake.I say the words that have popped into my head as a joke, anyway, because I want to hear your laugh again.

_I hope not. That sounds painful, and besides, if your hands were always stuck to my legs, how would they touch the other parts of me?_

I love how when we're on the phone your laugh quivers next to my ear, all light and unstuck. It feels closer than your regular words do, somehow. I reply to your laugh, saying, _What did you do today?_

You tell me about going to the beach and how warm the ocean is there, and I can see you in my mind, golden, stretching on the sand with your pleased-as-punch smile, and then you tell me how your mom seems to frown less than she has the last few months (I know that's because of you-do you know it's because of you? You must) and then you break off mid-sentence, and I'm so busy feeling your voice that I have to rewind your last words to figure out why you've stopped.

_And there were these two women on the beach and I think-_.

Your words hum through my brain and I replay them, hurrying, so there's not a gaping dark space between what you say and my answer. I try to imagine what you saw so I can know what you mean. I see two women, and they look like you and me, except older, and they're holding hands. For a second they're holding pinky fingers, like we do. I feel rushed, suddenly, like I need to say the right thing, and I can almost hear you waiting for me. I settle for the best words I know.

_It's ok, Santana. I understand._ I still, trying to hear for your breath before you speak, and it's like magic-there's a little rush as you let a small sigh out, and then your voice is pitching back, all warm and excited again against my ear, _-And at dinner..._

Your voice slows back down again now that your panic is forgotten, and I hear the tilt of your words, honey and soft. I guess if someone else were in my room they'd think I wasn't even listening, because I can feel the skin of my face smoothing out like there's nothing there, even though you'd know, if you were in front of me, that there is. I kick my shoes off and peel back one sock at a time where they are glued to my feet from dancing hard and I throw them across the room, startling Lord Tubbington a little. I wander over to him while you tell me about your uncle's impression of some actor from his youth who I don't know, and I laugh at your funny changed deep-voice even though I don't get the joke of it. I stroke back over the top of Tubbs's head with two fingers, calming him, and tickle the softest bit of him, right at the bottom of his ears. The feel of his fur and the shaking of his purr under my fingertips reminds me of you, suddenly, and I swallow down the ache that comes from wanting you back from your holiday, here, now, in my room. I pet Lord Tubbington once more and flop down onto my bed, legs hanging off the side and all my dance clothes still on, so I can concentrate on your voice with my whole body.

You break off from describing the new dress you bought this afternoon, and then you're saying, _Wait Britt, don't you have class tomorrow morning? I'm keeping you awake. _It's not a question, though the space after it lets it be one, and I can hear you breathing quietly, waiting for me to answer.

_No, you're not. I want to talk to you. _I can hear you smile even though there's nothing coming through the telephone cables, and they flash into my mind, empty of sound but carrying your smile all the way to me. I can't help but smile back.

_I bet you're just lying flat out on your bed, aren't you? You should shower, BrittBritt, and get ready for bed. I'll call you tomorrow. _Your voice wraps around your name for me like the flurries of paper in my snow globe, dusting on everything like the words that we're not saying just yet but I know we will soon-when you're back, and school starts, and we're together, for real this time.

I try to keep the whine out of my voice as I reply but it sneaks in anyway. _Just five more minutes? Please. _And then your smile is back, flying through the miles to my bedroom, and I grin because I've got my way. Suddenly it's like I can see you in front of my window and I remember all at once when you stayed over at my house the night after we had kissed for the first time.

_Hey, Santana? Are you in your pajamas?_

You are; I don't know why I even asked; I can hear it in your voice that you're how you are right before you get under the covers and curl up to sleep; your voice gets lower and extra warm and the rasp in it settles into a purr.

_Which ones are you wearing?_ I need to know, all of a sudden, if you're wearing your favorite black silk ones with the gray piping at the sleeves and the hem and cuffs. Those are the ones you wore that night. _Are you wearing your favorites? _

You just hum at me, like maybe you know what I'm thinking about, and that's all I need to push me back to that night and I can see you properly, now, my eyes closed but the way you stood in front of my window clearer than before, when my eyes were open. Your right hand is pulling at the left sleeve slightly, self-conscious in a way you never are around other people, and your hair is brushed and soft, flicking off your shoulders and meeting the dark-dark black of your pajamas and making the silk seem blacker for it. You're biting your lip a little, looking at me with something I didn't understand at the time, though now as I see it again after the last two years have passed I know what it is.

You were standing there with light coming in from behind you through the gauze of my curtains and you were all dark, all of you dark, but the thing in your eyes was bright and it was wanting me: you wanted to keep kissing me, but you didn't know how to ask. Once I was in my pajamas, you came over to my bed to crawl in beside me, and it didn't matter that I didn't know what your eyes were saying, because I wanted to kiss you enough for the both of us, and I pulled gently on the silk of your pajama top until we were lined up on our sides, front to front.

I was wearing my favorite pajamas too, but they are so different from yours, flannel pants and t-shirt, and as you shifted closer to me my hand ended up between us, still holding gently onto the silky fabric over your body but now with the back of my fist touching the soft of my t-shirt. I liked the feeling. My hand was in between cotton-soft and silk-shine, and then your lips were against mine and the best kind of soft-the soft of your kiss-was on me, too. My hands were moving before I knew what was happening and I remember how you gasped a little when my fingers touched the skin just above the band of your pajama pants. Your skin is so different from the silk but they both remind me of your voice when you sing songs that are deep and gentle and needing all at once. I played with the hem of your pajama pants while I kept kissing you and the space in between us got smaller, and we were pressed together and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I needed a new word to catch what it was we were doing.

I didn't take your pajamas off that night and you didn't take mine. We kept kissing for hours, and when I woke up in the night your hand was resting on my belly right over where the gap between the cloth of my shirt and the flannel of my pants stretched away to leave my skin to the air. Your dark hand on my pale skin and I couldn't move and couldn't breathe because I wanted you to stay there always.

On the phone, now, you've gone quiet and I can just hear your breathing slowing down and I think maybe you're remembering that night, too. I wonder whether to speak, or if it will break the spell. I think of you now-still dark haired and dark eyed and still wearing your black pajamas, but less afraid of the light I find in your eyes.

_Brittany? _

I'm ready for your whisper and I try to catch it up and keep it, so I can replay it again and again. _Yeah? _I whisper back, quiet like a cat walking.

_When I get back, I'm going to kiss you._

I smile. I know.


End file.
